I’m interning at Duet this semester. One of the traditional assignments they give to the intern is to work on the annual Tour de Paradise, a bike race benefiting the organization. Involved in that is the news releases, contacting bike shops and clubs and managing the website and social media. Up until this year, the race had always been in April. For 2011, they are changing the date to October. I hadn’t seen the site until recently as I had been focusing my efforts elsewhere. Then, I came across the site.
The colors for Duet are green, white, black and a shade of pink/magenta. The colors of Tour de Paradise are yellow, orange, red and black. These colors do not go well together. The first thing I noticed about the site was the color. It is a yellow and red with the text in black. Then there is the Duet logo: a green butterfly.
The colors of Tour de Paradise and Duet do not go together. I talked to my supervisor (the Communications director) about this and she said she agreed. She also said none of them knew how to do anything about it; they knew nothing about Photoshop or even the website templates they had paid for, which is why the butterfly was still the original green and not the reverse black.
The next thing I noticed was the vast amount of white space at the top of the page. Right under the “Tour de Paradise”/”Duet” logos, there was about an inch and a half of nothing but white space. This, I later discovered, was due to the template they were working with.
There are too many fonts going on. I saw at least three on the homepage alone. I feel that one should limit the number of fonts to two: one basic for the writing and one decorative or bold for the headings.
The scrolling images on the right don’t do anything. They should be bigger and centered on the page. People like to see themselves – people like to look at themselves. With that small of images and all the people in some of them, you can barely make out who is who.
The last thing I think should be changed is the “sponsor a rider” tab. This is a fundraising website. It is a benefit event, and while it clearly says that and describes what it is raising money for, it doesn’t make the “DONATE HERE” big, bold or bright. It would bring in more money if more attention was given to this tab (along the side or the top).
Overall, the website does accomplish the basics. The URL is clear and states what it is for. The homepage tells what Tour de Paradise is and how to get involved. The tabs along the top clearly describe what you will find on that page, in one or two words. And there is contact information easily accessible. However, the design of the site definitely needs some work.
EDIT: As one of my intern duties, I changed the logo of the butterfly. It used to be green – which I pointed out above. I used the reverse print (in black) so the colors didn’t clash so much. I also added a tentative date to the white space I discussed above.
